Great update! Helps everyone to understand the challenges and delays, but also be encouraged by the determination of the team, the progress that has been made, and the great things that have already been done!

Have been thinking about the state of the project report, and I am often pondering which major content update I'd like to see next in the game for the Alphateers...it truly is a toss up between home streets, and being able to modify my avatar.

I think finally getting our homestreets back will add a nice depth to the game as we would then have to gather more resources and spend time building furniture, floors, towers, and build out our home streets. And we'd have a place to call our own rather than being hobos on end streets. Would also be nice to be able to cultivate some of our own resources for skills that we want to focus on. And also to get our towers up, so we can sell products while we don't have an auction system in place.

But part of me yearns so much to have my own identity rather than currently picking one of 10 default options. I didn't realize how much having my own unique avatar in game was so much of a part of me. It's very odd when another Alphateer has chosen the same avatar, and we run into each other. It's almost as uncomfortable as showing up to a party and someone else has the same party dress...awkward! I really yearn for my Hawaiian shirt and flip flops (as my default look) and some of my crazy costumes for my various moods, my panda hat and pajamas, my pumpkin head for Zilloween, my camo pants and black watch caps for when I feel like being stealthy, my "Veggie Tales" costumes for Mab Day, my mining cap when I'm focused on mining missions, my formal wear for parties, my pirate costume, etc.

Looking forward to seeing what the devs choose as the next major content update in Alpha. What will it be? Home streets, avatar modification, instanced locations (so we get subways and hell again), the auction system, or something I can't even remember we're missing right now?! Will be fun to see what they have in store!

@B3achy- Just reading your post has me reminiscing about the days of glitch. I remember numerous times running in to someone that looked exactly like me and I do have to say it did get on my nerves. I do want to say though, if that is all that you think is missing, it sounds like it is close! I am so excited I can't wait!

@Wuilyl - currently there are still only 10 looks the Alphateers can choose from, so we are bound to run into others that have chosen the same default look right now. It's actually pretty typical for us to pick the same look, unlike in Glitch where it was odd if you ran into someone with the same look with so many options.

But, Yes, there are so many things working (as you can tell from our Alpha Chronicles posts). We have the full map of Ur (with the exception of a few instanced locations). We have animals that actually move now on their own (we used to have to click them to make them move). We have skills trees that mostly work (there are a still a couple we need). Most interactions work - petting/watering/harvesting trants, interacting with the animals, mining rocks, growing and harvesting crops and herbs, etc. We can interact with quoins, which we couldn't do when I was selected for Alpha almost a year ago now. It is amazing the amount of work that has been poured into making the game come alive again by the devs.

We most recently have instanced locations (or at least a place holder for some of the instanced locations, since some of the streets will need to be reconstructed from scratch). However, hell is back, so we can now die with minimal interruptions to our gameplay (it used to require a dev to revive us). This piece of the puzzle should open the door for us to get homestreets (which we are still waiting on, but should be 'soon'). In addition to housing, we are also still waiting on personalized avatars and the webapp to work so we can check our skills tree and achievement lists, have a better functioning friend system, and of course change and modify our looks. I've heard that this is also a 'soon' possibility, but they have to release things in stages since we always need to figure out what breaks with each release before they add more content.

We've had a lot of great development over the past year by the devs. Considering they had to rebuild the framework for the gameserver for stability issues (a lot of background work that helps the overall game play, but wasn't something the Alphateers necessarily saw as content updates), they still delivered a lot of great content things for the players to see. Now that it is behind them, I'm looking forward to what they have planned as far as content related releases.

This latest contest with picking more Alphateers is a good sign of things to come. The server is clearly stable enough they are willing to let in larger numbers of new players to come help the rest of us break things, er, I mean test things.

@b3achy-It is so good to hear your report, thank you so much I cannot wait! Tower were such a cool aspect also, I only sort of remember them. Your description sounds amazing and again I don't know who exactly to say this to, but I cannot wait to see what new stuff is released and adapted. So cool and amazing!

The best place to see where we provide updates on what is happening in game is the Alpha Chronicles thread. If we've not posted in a while, it means we're waiting on new stuff to tell you also. You can sort of gauge when new content is released or we stumble on something that hasn't been reported before because there will probably be a few of us that post on that item out of sheer excitement.